Most crime is not random.In Australia, the chances of being victimized are low
vis-à-vis many other countries.

1.INTERNATIONAL
DATA ON CRIME VICTIMISATION

There have been a series of international and national
studies that compare the incidence of different forms of crime across about 60
countries.The International Crime
Victimisation Survey (ICVS) was conducted in 1989, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and
XXX, and the collated data allow for the calculation of estimates of rates of
victimization, variations between segments of populations, proportion of crimes
reported and not reported to police, perceptions of risk and some of the ways
by which people attempt to protect themselves against victimization (see, for
example, van Kesteren et al, 2000).

Because definitions of crimes vary in different countries,
it is very difficult to compare the relative safety or ‘dangerousness’ from one
country to another. Further, some differences are due to changes in the way
data are recorded and variations in the proportion
of crimes that are reported/not-reported to police. However, homicide rates do allow a
relatively unambiguous basis for comparison.In the table below, the average number of homicides per
100,000 population is shown for a few selected cities in different countries.

Table 1: Homicides per 100,000 population in selected cities; average
per year 1999-2001

Tokyo1.21

Sydney1.63

Wellington2.13

Helsinki2.18

Berlin2.34

London2.6

Vienna2.84

San Francisco8.10

Moscow18.38
(derived from Barclay & Tavares, 2001, p. 11)

As can be seen in Table 1, overall, Australia remains one of
the safest countries in the world with a homicide risk that has remained comparatively
low for many years (For example, the USA has a homicide rate at least three
times that in Australia). For other forms of crime, international comparisons
are more difficult. While
aggregate data allow comparisons between countries,
there are also marked variations in risk within
countries between different localities/towns/suburbs etc.